Although the annual St. Patrick’s Parade along Forest Avenue is certainly not an event of its creation, SIPE sought to march in it this year.

The parade committee replied that while group members were welcome to participate, they could not use the occasion to advertise themselves or their agenda.

This should hardly have come as surprise to them. Notwithstanding the rollicking good times that constitute much of the parade’s secular aspects, it remains at its core a tribute to and celebration of the life of St. Patrick, who also happens to be the Patron Saint of the Archdiocese of New York.

Although the Catholic Church enjoins its faithful to treat everyone with respect and compassion, it condemns homosexual acts as gravely sinful.

Therefore, unless the committee were willing to significantly compromise the parade’s religious foundation, its response to SIPE was not only logical but imperative.

The decision prompted City Council President Christine Quinn, who is openly gay, to boycott the parade. Which, considering her rabidly pro-abortion politics, was only slightly less gratifying than if parade officials had declined to invite her in the first place.

Upon learning of the situation, members of the Young Democrats of Richmond County decided to march in the parade with rainbow-patterned fabric pinned onto their coats.

This as “a showing of solidarity and support of an all-inclusive parade.”

That the action might have consequences was certainly foreseeable.

Unfortunately, a confrontation did occur when one parade official challenged them over their wearing the pins. Measured against the breadth of the parade’s pageantry, the incident, ultimately resolved, was of little consequence. Yet, in its aftermath, an issue has emerged over public funds allocated for the parade.

Borough President James Molinaro gives the parade $3,000 each year, something he says he will continue to do. North Shore City Council Member Debi Rose provided $2,500 for this year’s parade.

She, however, isn’t making any promises for the future, stating instead that she would make a “decision if I feel there is some justification for withholding city funds.” The parade committee cites a 1995 Supreme Court decision as establishing its right to determine who may march in the parade and under what conditions.

However, Rosemary Palladino, a founder of Staten Island Stonewall, argues, “If you want to be a private parade, then you can’t take public money.”

COMPELLED SPEECH

The Supreme Court decision in question, Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston, involved the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in that city. Writing for a unanimous court, Justice David Souter framed the issue as “whether Massachusetts may require private citizens who organize a parade to include among the marchers a group imparting a message the organizers do not wish to convey.”

Then he provided the court’s answer: “We hold that such a mandate violates the First Amendment.”

Recognizing that a parade is a constitutionally protected form of speech, Souter reasoned that every participating unit affects the message intended to be conveyed by its organizers.

“A speaker has the autonomy to choose the content of his own message,” he declared, and the parade committee “clearly decided to exclude a message it did not like . . . and that is enough to invoke its right as a private speaker to shape its expression . . . ”

While there are a couple of technical caveats, the Hurley decision’s sweeping free-speech endorsement provides considerable support for the position taken by the parade committee on Staten Island. The fact that there is limited public funding for the parade doesn’t compel a different result.

In Ghiotto v. City of San Diego, a decision handed down last October that was largely ignored by the mainstream media, the California Court of Appeal upheld a jury verdict awarding compensatory damages to four firefighters who were given a direct order to participate in that city’s Pride Parade against their will.

In a unanimous 74-page opinion, the court found that during the city’s annual, public celebration of the local gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered communities, the four plaintiffs suffered sexual harassment that was so “severe and pervasive” as to alter the conditions of their employment and expose them to a hostile work environment.

The court also noted that a “a sizeable contingent of public safety and law enforcement officers” participated in the parade.

At the very least, however, the mandated participation of the four plaintiffs constituted an unmistakable governmental endorsement of the parade’s agenda, something that cannot reasonably be said of the mere $5,500 provided to the Staten Island parade committee.

Council Member Rose told the Advance that she will seek a “sitdown” with parade organizers about their policy.

If they want to do that, that’s their business. But if they choose instead to rebuff any governmental attempt to control their speech, that’s their business too - and their constitutional right.

[Daniel Leddy’s column appears each Tuesday on the Advance Editorial Page. His e-mail address is JudgeLeddy@si.rr.com.]